Category Archives: Montessori Materials

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When I started off with Montessori 2 years ago I thought I needed all the materials. They each have a specific purpose and skill they teach and they fit together in a perfect way. I thought if I skipped one I’d miss something. But over time I realized that a home won’t be exactly like a Montessori classroom. Without the other children and without the set up of a specific class with only Montessori materials available, things are different. Things work differently. Things have to be adapted. And most people don’t have the money or space for all the materials. So this is what I would have done differently. What materials I would have skipped or substituted or made myself (or which I did make myself) and which ones I’m glad I have. Now what my kids weren’t interested in or loved may be different for someone else’s. Each child is unique. There isn’t one way or one answer, so these are just my experiences and thoughts. I’ve only included the materials that we’ve reached in our journey. There are more primary materials but we haven’t come to them yet so I can’t comment. I highly recommend getting a set of albums to understand the scope and sequence of each material to help you decide what you need. There are links to sites to purchase materials in the pictures and in the written text.

Language

Moveable Alphabet

I started off doing cursive because that is what is recommended in Montessori. It’s said it’s easier for a child to write as they don’t have to take their pencil off the paper and that it activates a different part of the brain. Pumpkin 1 learned the cursive lower case letters and picked up print letters on her own too but she really struggled with writing. When she did start writing she wrote in print. It seemed that cursive has too many steps to remember vs print. She wants to write in print so I’m following her lead and have shifted my materials to print. The print moveable alphabets are a little cheaper. You could also get this verson on Amazon from Learning Resources set which is also magnetic

It doesn’t have as many letters as the wood moveable alphabet (and is the wrong colours) so if you do want more letters then buying two is about the same price as buying the wood set. One set fits perfectly in this box.

If money is really tight you could print off a paper version and the above box is a great way to store it too.

Sandpaper Letters

I went with these sandpaper letters when I switched to print to use with Pumpkin 2. I actually really prefer them. The sandpaper is great, it doesn’t shed sand everywhere and they’re smaller which is helpful when it comes to storing. They come in a nice sturdy box. They’re not colour coded like the Montessori sandpaper letters are.

It’s also pretty easy to make your own “sandpaper” letters from sticky back felt.

Another alternative is these grooved boards from IFIT Montessori.

These have upper and lower case letters and numbers and other symbols so it’s great bang for your buck. You just need a stick of some sort for tracing. I have these and they’re great quality.

Small Objects for the Sound Game or Sound Boxes

These aren’t necessary. You can play the sound game with anything in a room or outside. However my kids do really like them. They like to sort them out.

They can be a bit of a distraction though. I had a bunch from my mother (who is a teacher) and bought a set from here. Purchasing a set made things much easier and probably saves money in the long run vs trying to buy your own objects individually. Their set also was carefully thought out with many of the objects able to be used for CVC words and phonograms as well as tricky letters like infant for “i” and vacuum for “v”. One could also print off pictures.

Metal Insets

These are great to have for developing writing skills. They are super expensive though. However, there is a very affordable plastic version available on Amazon.com (and ships to Canada). I recommend having them.

Sensory

Pink Tower

I’d say it’d good to have this. It’s still used pretty often by my kids. I haven’t found a set of stacking blocks the same. Having 10 is important (much of the sensory materials are in sets of 10) and the weight is very important (thus nesting boxes just aren’t the same).

If you know a carpenter they could maybe cut a set for you.

Brown Stair

My son really loves the Brown Stair (mainly to drive cars down it which is a no no in Montessori but I gave up trying to stop him). However, if you’re on a tight budget I’d skip it and just get the Pink Tower. If you are going to get it go with the stained not painted version. My painted version has chipped a lot and I wish I got a natural wood one to prevent this.

I don’t recommend getting the mini set of either. They just aren’t the same sensory experience. I’d rather skip the Brown Stair than have a mini of both.

Knobbed Cylinders

For some reason I love these and find them very satisfying to do. My kids were crazy about them from about 18 months to 2 and then weren’t interested in them again.

Again don’t waste money on the mini set. Either skip them or Montessori Outlet sells the blocks separably so you could just get 1 or 2 blocks. If your child is 3 or older and you’re on a budget, just skip them. I don’t know why I like them so much but my kids don’t.

Knobbless Cylinders

There isn’t really anything that is a substitute for these. I’d recommend them. I’d probably chose them over the Pink Tower if funds were limited just since they teach a similar concept of size difference in many different ways.

Red Rods

I wasn’t going to buy these but got them in an order mix up and kept them. However, they were almost never used except by Pumpkin 2 as swords. After a million times of taking them away and trying to get him to stop using them in dangerous ways or as a vacuum cleaner or lawn mower (??), I put them in the basement where they remain to this day. Personally I’d go with cuisenaire rods.

They’re of course way smaller and different colours (so not one concept is isolated and you lose the weight difference) but they so much less dangerous and easier to store in a home. You could paint them all one colour if you wanted. When it comes to some of the sensory materials I feel free exploration is a better way to good. That’s my Reggio side. I’d rather let my kids play with a bunch of cuisenaire rods and learn through play.

Constructive Triangles

I’m going with the same philosophy when it comes to these too. Learn through play. I really love this Learning Resources set and so do my kids.

They’re great on the light table and so open ended.

Another alternative is the regular pattern blocks. There’s a ton of patterns you can print off online for kids to use.

My kids prefer the magnetic pattern blocks though. We have this set by Melissa and Doug and it gets used often though it’s not as durable. I also print off and laminate patterns and use them with the tiles on cookie trays.

Geo Solids

I haven’t found a set of Geometric Solids that has all the same shapes as the Montessori ones. I’d say it’s important that they be solid wood for the weight (not foam or plastic). The closest set I can find is this one.

But it has shapes you don’t need, different sizes and doesn’t have an ovoid. You also don’t have the base pieces. But if you’re on a budget this is probably your best bet.

Colour Tablets

My kids were just never interested in these. I painted a set of wooden peg people which my kids liked better but it was tricky to get the shades right.

Easiest thing would be to just get a bunch of paint chips and cut them and use them. You could laminate them for durability. Here are some more DIY ideas:

Sound Cylinders

These are pretty popular here. But they’re not hard to make on your own. See the below link for lots of ideas.

Binomial and Trinomial Cubes

There isn’t really an alternative to these however they don’t get much use in my home. They may come in handy in the elementary years but they wouldn’t be first on my list to purchase of primary materials. However, as I’ve mentioned, some kids really loves them so you’ll have to decide for yourself.

Geo Cabinet

Way too expensive and bulky to make practical for home use. You can get shape puzzles and have your children trace them.

You can also make templates by tracing them for kids to match to. When it comes to the more complicated shapes there are lots of other ways to teach those. Smaller knobs are more desirable though as they teach the pincher grasp so have lots of regular wood puzzles with small knobs for your child to use.

Other Sensory Materials

There are a few other materials like the thermic tablets, baric tablets, fabric squares, smelling bottles, etc…. I think there are many other ways to do these sensory activities and some of the materials are easy to DIY. What you get really depends on you budget. Also many of these require you child to be blindfolded. For some reason my kids always insist on peaking which defeats the purpose.

Math

Number Rods

I only have the table top number rods and those have been enough. Honestly we’ve rarely used them. My kids picked up numbers and one to one correspondence without them. There’s so many ways to teach this, even just in daily life. You wouldn’t miss them if you skipped them.

Numbers and Counters

Counters can be anything – stones, buttons, cars, blocks, paperclips, candies. Fridge magnets can be the numbers. Here we are using pine cones we collected with fridge magnets.

Sandpaper Numbers

I’ve never had them or missed them. You could get them, they’re not that expensive, or you could make your own set. You could also get the grooved set mentioned under Sandpaper letters that contains the numbers too.

Spindle Box

It’s so easy to make your own of these with a tackle box from the Dollar Store and permanent marker and Popsicle sticks.

The great thing about the one I made is you can use it on the light table. We’ve used plastic stir sticks and plastic ice cubes from the Dollar Store.

Stamp Game

Pumpkin 1 much prefers my DIY Stamp Game to the original. And it was so inexpensive to make.

Dollar Store tackle box, glass gems (I did have to hunt and pay more than I wanted for the red ones), permanent marker and wood peg people or you could use game tokens. I just wrote the numbers on the bottom of the gems with permanent marker and voila. Pumpkin 1 likes glass gems. The numbers do tend to get scratch off with rattling around in the box so one day I may coat the bottom in clear nail polish. This set doesn’t have everything the purchased Stamp Games does but we aren’t using those pieces yet and it won’t be hard to add.

Place Value Mat

Not exactly a Montessori material but I highly recommend having one. We use it with the Golden Beads and the Stamp Game. It’s fast and easy to make your own.

100 Chart

This one from Learning Resources isn’t that much cheaper but it’s magnetic so one bump doesn’t ruin all your hard work. Also you can write on it with a white board marker. It’s two sided, one with numbers and the other with just the grid.

Another idea is just to print one off and use stickers. My kids LOVE stickers.

Teen and Ten Boards

I printed off the Teen Board from Montessori Print Shop and it’s been a hit. I find kids like velcro (I cut velcro to fit in the middle of the “0” of the 10). I bought a Ten Board. Big flop. Pumpkin 1 hates it. I should have just done a printed version.

Hanging Bead Stair

There is a 1-9 version and a teen version. They’re not traditional Montessori materials and not necessary to have. However my kids have always enjoyed doing them. I think they liked the fine motor aspect of hanging the beads. You could get the teen one instead of the Teen Board. But again, not necessary though nice to have.

Golden Beads and Math Beads

I love the bead materials. For the Golden Beads one could use base ten blocks but you’d need a lot for the Montessori works. You need at least 9 1000 cubes, 45 hundred squares, and lots of 10 and 1’s. So it may not be worth the cost in the end. Plus the beads really give a visual of the amount. I made my own bead materials (well I should say making, I’m not finished yet though I’ve completed the Golden Beads). I purchased the wood numbers for durability. You need 3 smalls sets and 1 large set. The purchased paper sets aren’t that much cheaper. You can also print your own small for $1 and there’s free large ones here.

Making your own bead materials isn’t hard, just time consuming. Just make sure you use spherical beads not pony bead or you’ll wind up with rectangles. Pumpkin 1 likes my cheap home made beads better than the purchases ones I have because my faceted ones are more sparkly. Here’s a great tutorial on making your own bead materials (Just note, if you do use wood beads like she did, it’s not going to save you much money. Faceted beads are the most inexpensive way to go). For the wood 1000’s cubes I’d just go with the store bought ones for durability though you can make paper ones. I’d prefer them 3D for the sensory experience. They’re not too pricey. For the 45 100’s wood squares you can print ones off and laminate them.

Geography

World Puzzle Map

My kid prefer the felt one I made to our wood one. It was a lot of work and you can’t trace it to make your own maps but I like it and it takes up less space. The template is from Imagine Our Life and is free.

Flags

We do have a world flag map which is a big hit at our house. Pumpkin 1 knows pretty much all the flags so I highly recommend it.

But for the flags of all the countries this is what we did.

The stickers are from this book and there’s two sets. One set I put on the maps that come with the book and put them in a binder and the other set I put on wood rectangles.

Puzzle Maps

I do have all the Puzzle Maps as I got a good deal on them on clearance. But one could use a globe and an atlas to learn the countries of the world. There are also these cardboard geo puzzles.

If you do purchase the puzzle maps you’ll need a way to store them, they are big. My shelf is made out of an old end table.

Globes

They’re nice to have. They’re not too hard to make yourself. I found small globes at the Dollar Store. This blog’s a great place for DIY ideas.

Land Form Trays

Pumpkin 1 has always loved these. I’d recommend having them as they’re a great sensory experience. You can also make your own. You’ll also need a way to store them. If you purchase I recommend getting the cabinet too.

Continent Boxes

Technically these are supposed to be folders of pictures. This is a great inexpensive way to go. But boxes are fun too. Take your time and don’t try to fill them all at once. I still haven’t done all the continents. Montessori Print Shop has lots of photos and maps you can print off. Many people like to add Safari Ltd Toob figures.

You can put money in the box, books, flags, toys, whatever you come across. Popular in ours is Viewfinder reels.

Botany and Zoology

Botany and Zoology Puzzles

I do have these and the storage shelves and they have been very popular in my home. I didn’t realize when I purchased them that the Zoology ones corresponded to the types of Vertebrates and I don’t have the turtle and wish I did. If I were to purchase again I’d spend a little more and get the ones with the bones underneath to fit in with the activities on Vertebrates.

Leaf Cabinet

I have this, I got a deal on it as it was a damaged display model. However we never use it. It’s not really necessary. The metal insets teach the same skill and there are other ways to teach the type of leaf shapes.

Life Cycles

Not exactly a Montessori material, we really love our life cycle figures. We have a combination from Safari Ltd and Insect Lore. Some are available on Amazon, some at Michael’s stores (don’t forget to use a coupon, Michael’s always has coupons).

We also use Safari Ltd figures not just in our Continent boxes and Life Cycles but learning about insects and Vertebrate and Invertebrate sorting.

They are great to ask for for Christmas and birthday presents.

Music

Bells

You’re probably not going to easily find an affordable set of Montessori Bells so you’ll have to DIY.

Staff

I made my own staff materials. I used gems for the scale and I printed and laminated notes for rhythm. One could also just put their child in music lessons. Pumpkin 1 was doing piano for a while but we took a break.

Other

There is still other things you’ll need.

Shelves

You definitely need shelves. Ideally they should be child height but if space and storage is a minimum taller is better. Don’t forget to attach shelves to the wall for safety. You can easily add more storage space to shelves by getting shelf board cut and buying shelf clips. Also these kitchen storage racks work great on cube shelves.

Work Mats

Carpets from the Dollar Store or Walmart work well. Some people use towels. One with lines works well for the Moveable Alphabet.

Album

These are a MUST have in my opinion if you are homeschooling Montessori. I feel Keys of the World are excellent and the most affordable.

Laminator

There are many materials you can print off. Having a good laminator is a must. I have this one.

It used to be for sale on Amazon.ca but it seems to be gone. You can check Walmart or Staples. You don’t need a very expensive one but you will need lots of laminating sheets.

Practical Life Items

You can get most of these at the Dollar Store or use items around your house.

Trays

You’ll need lots of storage trays. I do like the look of wood trays but plastic works fine. There are lots of trays at the Dollar Store. Try to use all the same colour, like white or tan, to keep it from being distracting.

So I know I’ve probably forgotten some things but I hope this is a pretty helpful list of the materials and what has worked and hasn’t worked for us. I hope it helps those who are just starting out make the difficult decisions on how to Montessori on a budget and what to purchase.

I already feel like winter is looming and it’s only June. That ominous, “Winter is Coming”. I know the next few months will fly by and I want my kids to soak up as much of beauty and nature and sun and warmth they can. Official school activities are not priority right now, gross motor play is. We recently started going to a new park the kids love. No one is there during the day yet so my kids have the park to themselves. The other parks we go to are frustrating because a school or daycare will show up with 30-40 kids and just take over the place and my shy kids fell overwhelmed or they’re older kids who are too rough and use bad words and so we leave. Anyway, we’re trying to do school outside as often as we can. Here are some more ideas for bringing Montessori out into the sunshine.

This DIY spindle box is so simple. The container is from the Dollar Store. It’s a tackle or hardware box. I use these a lot for storing things. And popsicle sticks, also available at the Dollar Store. Often I change up the “spindles” for other things – straws, sticks, counting bugs, etc…

In fact you can use nature for counting. These are pine cones the kids collected. The numbers are regular magnetic ones.

Toobs are great to bring outside or any other small plastic animals. This is Vertebrate and Invertebrate sorting.

We recently got a Backyard Birds Toob from Michael’s. We already had the bird book. The kids like to find the birds in the book. They also are painting pictures of the birds to make their own bird book.

This is a sight word game from Amazon. It’s a way to make learning sight words more fun.

This is so simple to do but it takes dexterity for the kids. They have to remember to weave in and out. It was too hard for Pumpkin 2 and a challenge for Pumpkin 1. The tidy part you see was me showing her how. It’s really great for crossing the midline and spacial reasoning.

We tried out a ball run with cut pool noodles and Boomerings (and you thought Boomerings were a baby toy). The balls kept getting lost in the cut grass so then we did water.

Next we’re going to try building something with trough. I need to get some more Boomerings though. They’re super strong and sturdy.

I have lots more ideas in my head for outdoor learning I can’t wait to share with you.

Finally, beautiful weather. Anyone who lives in a northern area where they suffer through 6 months of winter + 2 months of almost winter, knows that those nice days are like a drink of water to one wandering in the desert. You just want to drink it all up and not miss a drop. So, of course, I don’t want to be stuck inside doing “school” when the weather is nice and neither do the kids. And, though I value lots of free play, I still do want to do some school activities. The solution? Bring the classroom outside! I don’t just mean gross motor, outside activities, but actual Montessori materials designed to be used outside.

I didn’t want to take my actual wooden, expensive Montessori materials outside where they could easily get damaged and that’d be a lot to transport daily. So I put together a set of Montessori like activities focusing on affordability, durability, mobility and washable Many of these could be DIY or affordable alternatives to the Montessori materials for those on a budget. This is part 1 of our outdoor classroom.

So the first thing for an outside classroom is the set up. You need places to work and you need some shade from the sun. We have a table and chairs with an shade umbrella. A magnetic whiteboard on the fence. And a caddy that can be moved outside during the day and back in at night. We also have a smaller umbrella that can be moved around to where it’s needed.

Now to our “Outside Materials”

Moveable Alphabet

This moveable alphabet is made from magnetic foam letters by Learning Resources. The container is the Plano Stowaway that I got on Amazon. They fit perfectly and it makes them easily transportable and accessible. We use them on the magnetic whiteboard on our fence. Or we can use them on a cookie tray from the dollar store. Being magnetic they won’t blow away when there’s a nice breeze.

We also have other regular magnetic letters that we do some upper and lower case matching with.

Stamp Game

I really love our outdoor stamp game. In fact, if I had thought of it sooner, I wouldn’t have purchased the stamp game at all and just used this.

The gems are from the Dollar Store and Michaels (I had trouble finding red ones). The pegs I already had. You could dye them different colours with food colouring if you wanted. You could also use plastic game tokens. I wrote the numbers on the back of the gems with permanent marker. The nice thing about the numbers is if you do the “1” like I did, you don’t have to worry about writing it backwards in order to look right. The storage container is also from the Dollar Store.

I also grabbed one of our place value mats that I made. The plastic number squares are from Amazon. I also put them in a Dollar Store container for easy use and transportation.

The number tiles can also be used with unifix cubes for other math activities.

“Red” Rods

I brought out a set of our cuisenaire rods as mini “red” rods. I put them in a sandwich container from the Dollar Store for storage. One could paint them all the same colour if they wanted.

Hundred Board

This is actually our only Hundred Board. I never got a wooden one as this was affordable and wouldn’t shift around if bumped. With the pieces stored in another Dollar Store container it’s easy to transport and great to use outside. One side has numbers and the other side is a blank grid. You can also write on it with a white board marker.

Constructive “Triangles”

These plastic pattern blocks aren’t exactly the same as the constructive triangles but they’re great for learning shapes and how shapes fit together. You can also print off patterns to match them to. Dollar Store container again!

Pumpkin 1 has been crazy about the Magnetic Mighty Mind. We’ve actually had it for a few years but I just pulled it out as she was too young before. It’s the perfect travel size and the magnets are strong so they stay in place. The cards start off simple and get progressively more difficult. She worked on this for about 45 mins.

Geo Solids

These mini Geo Solids from Learning Resources can be used to teach shapes and size. There is 4 sizes of each. They’re not exactly the same as the Montessori ones, mainly they’re missing the round shapes. I threw in a little ball from the Dollar Store to teach sphere. I worked on Small, Medium and Large with Pumpkin 2. And I also learned the new shape – Hexagonal Prism.

After a child has worked with the wooden moveable alphabet, the child is introduced to a moveable alphabet made from paper or thin plastic with the lower case on one side and the upper case on the back. This alphabet has about 25 of each letter so that they can begin to write sentences. Usually two colours of this alphabet are given so that phonograms can be isolated in a different colour when learning them. I’ve also seen some green phongram moveable “alphabets” with the main phonograms given in order that the child has all the sounds available.

Pumpkin 1 isn’t quite ready for this alphabet but I figured I’d better start making it. I wanted it in cursive and so far I’ve only found ready made print ones available for purchase and I wanted to save a little money doing my own. I found a PDF online and purchased it but I discovered that it couldn’t be printed back to front. One had to print the lower-case and upper-case on separate sheets. This would mean twice the amount of cutting and then sticking them together for laminating. Cutting and laminating and then re-cutting 25 of each letter for two alphabets is a lot of cutting. I didn’t want to have to add to that. So I created my own version to print and designed it to be printed front to back. Because I found my printer doesn’t print exactly the same depending on how it draws in the paper, I put lines on only one side for cutting, with no lines on the back so there was no worry if it printed off a little; it wouldn’t be noticeable.

I made them the right size to fit into this container sold on Amazon. (click photo for link)

Now I’ve begun the task of printing and cutting and laminating. It’s going to take a while. I’ve done about 7 of each letter of the black alphabet and 4 of each phonogram. I don’t think I need 25 of the phonograms. I purchased a smaller container for the phonograms but they wouldn’t all fit so I put a few in the black alphabet container.

My printed alphabet PDF is available for purchase on my Etsy store. It comes with 4 sets of alphabets in black, red, green and blue and a green set of phonograms.

A tip for those printing and laminating their own. Put a dab of glue stick on the back to keep the pieces in place in the laminating sheet. After it goes through the laminator the glue won’t be visible or ruin the print in anyway.

To this point I haven’t bought the sandpaper phonograms. The sandpaper letters didn’t get much use here so I haven’t wanted to spend the money. I recently saw someone make their own sandpaper letters out of sticky backed felt and thought that was a great idea so I decided to make my own phonograms.

I purchased sticky backed felt from Amazon. Then I created a template of the letters. My template is available here: phonogram cards

I printed the template off and cut it out. Then I traced it backwards onto the back of the felt and cut it out (don’t forget to do it backwards, I forgot the first time and had a backwards th). I took card stock and laminated it to use as the base. You could also use poster board. Then I peeled the back off and stuck it on and voilà! So simple. You could make all your sandpaper letters this way though it is time consuming. Right now I’m making my phonograms a few at a time.

Pumpkin 1 is learning piano from her Gammie. We also have a set of Montessori Bells. I was trying to think of a way to teach the staff and I saw a Pinterest post with the person using gems with the letters on them. We have a pile of gems and Pumpkin 1 loves playing with them.

I printed off one staff and wrote the letters on it. I did print off a treble and bass clef but haven’t laminated them yet. I wrote the note names on the back of the gems with permanent marker.

I introduced matching them to the bells and then how we can write the music we play using the staff. Pumpkin 1 has tried writing her own music for the piano so she really liked this. That’s one key area of Montessori music that different from music lessons – the children are given the opportunity to write their own music. Creativity is such a huge motivation for learning something. How often do we learn and study something so that we can express our creativity – knitting or crochet, painting, playing an instrument, carving, sewing, writing. Being able to express ourselves is a fundamental human desire across all cultures. In the Reggio approach there is a lot of importance given to “the hundred languages of the child” which is all the different ways and mediums in which a child communicates and expresses himself.

If you can’t afford a set of Montessori bells, you can pick up a set of hand bells. If possible spray paint them so they’re all one colour so that the child learns to use their ears rather than their eyes to differentiate between the sounds.

Pumpkin 2 is growing up fast. Not only is he potty trained day and night, he no longer sucks his thumbs (thanks to some applications of juice from our Aloe Vera plant) and he no longer has a nap. The no nap has meant huge changes to our daily schedule and including him in “school time” now. It has also meant a lot of changes for me to figure out how to work with both of them but, it has been going better than I expected. It’s also had benefits as the day can be more relaxed since we don’t have to make sure nap time is on time. Yesterday he preferred to dump the shapes from the pattern pictures everywhere and to make the coloured peg people crash into each other, but he is also having periods of work too. Here’s him sorting Plant and Animal Cards.

We’ve been doing music as a group activity. We match bells and then work on rhythms. Rhythm is way too advanced for Pumpkin 2 but it’s something he wants to be a part of. They really like this drum I got from Amazon. Pumpkin 1 has been resistant to learning rhythm but she needs to for her piano lessons so the drum was a great motivation. We did have a good talk about how to treat the drum (I could just see Pumpkin 2 trying to stand on it) and it’s kept up high to only be used with me.

Pumpkin 1 is working on linear counting. She got bored with the Golden beads so I thought it best to take a break and work on something new. It worked because she was interested in them again the other day. I also found out that you don’t have to do subtraction with them before multiplication and since she wasn’t keen on subtraction, multiplication will probably be the next step.

These are the Teens boards I printed off and laminated from Montessori Print Shop. I put some velcro on them because I think it makes it more fun and eliminates the frustration of accidentally shifting the cards.

We’ve been learning about Vertebrates and the types of Vertebrates and I got a skeleton of a pigeon on huge discount from Affordable Montessori. The kids were fascinated. Pumpkin 1 is holding a laser light I was using to point out the spine or Vertebrate. I thought they’d be scared of it but I guess they haven’t been exposed to the idea of skeleton’s being scary. Pumpkin 1 as been asking a lot of questions about the body and so I plan to do a unit study on the body soon.

I also got these from Amazon and the kids love them. They’re quite fun and were cheaper than X-Rays of bones.

Pumpkin 2 is my cuddly boy. He’ll sit on my lap for hours if he could. It’s funny because he can be so full of energy, literally bouncing off the walls (yes literally, he loves to crash into them and fall on the floor) but he’ll sit so nicely on my lap and just look at a book or play with cars or watch his sister. I try to soak it up as much as I can because I know it’s not going to last forever, but I also need to get things done. It’s such a difficult choice, snuggle him a little more, or get to the list of things I need to do. I usually pick snuggle.

Pumpkin 1 is just starting to be ready for math at almost 4. Majority of children aren’t ready for math until that age as their brain hasn’t developed that somewhat abstract thinking skills needed for math. Math has always been a difficult subject for me but I love the Montessori method of math since it’s so hands on it makes it much easier to understand.

We’re doing a combination of Montessori and Right Start Math. You can read about the Right Start Math approach here and here. And a video review by another homeschooling mom here.

Since I still want to use many of the Montessori math materials I am creating my own bead bars, chains and cubes with the Right Start principle of 5+. Here is what my beads look like.

So you can see for 6 it’s 5 dark and 1 light. 9 is 5 dark and 4 light. The 5+ concept helps children to visualize the number. You can visualize amounts up to 5 but after that you have to group them in your mind to be able to visualize.

Today I was working on helping her understand that the beads and the abacus are the same.

She has always loved the hanging bead stair since she was little. If you don’t have one I highly recommend it. Today she was actually counting the beads past 5. Usually she just rhymes the numbers off without 1 to 1 correspondence after 5 but today she insisted on counting every bead bar carefully. When you start to worry as a mom that they’re not getting something, just give it time. A few weeks older can make a ton of difference.

We’ve also been working on some geometry. Today we did triangles and quadrilaterals. Pumpkin 1 loves this geoboard from Discovery Toys and I do too. It’s huge so it’s easy for her fingers to use, unlike the smaller ones. I made triangles and quadrilaterals on it and she’d tell me which it was. She also likes to just make pictures with the elastics.

Last week I was teaching her (and learning myself) the different types of triangles. The geoboard was also perfect for this.

Pumpkin 2 likes to use the other side which is the Giant Pegboard. Toddlers love to fit things in holes. You can also do colour and shape matching and patterning and counting and so much more. It’s just so versatile. You can purchase one for your family here:

I finally finish our Felt World Map. I only had the Antarctic puzzle piece left to sew, the kids had been using it without it but I finally got around to it today. It actually wasn’t as daunting a project as I thought it’d be and it turns out lovely, even if you’re not sure what you’re doing!

This is the map part, it’s sewn onto the blue ocean. I got the large pieces of felt from Fabricland. It’s pretty inexpensive. It’s not wool felt however, just regular felt made from plastic but you could do this in wool felt. There are some sites on Etsy that sell large bolts of wool felt.

I didn’t sew down all the little islands, some I just glued with fabric glue and I glued on the inland water pieces.

Matching the continent puzzles to the map. Pumpkin 1 loves this activity and she learned to name them all really quickly.

The colours match the Montessori colours for each continent so it matches the puzzle maps and globes.

If you can’t afford the Montessori world puzzle map this would be a great, inexpensive substitute.